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Not that hard, I had plans using a phone jack and a headset+mic that I bought from radioshack, just hook the mic to mic and speaker to speaker then you're set, then just plug a line into it, you could tweak it in many ways, add aligator clips, add a phone off of it, etc.

Just want to let you know that if you direct-connect a speaker or headphones to the phone line, there will be an audible 'click' on the line, just as if someone picked up another phone on the same line. Also, it will open the line if there is no call.

If I remember correctly, it's just the green and red wires.

To tap into the line without the 'click', you need an induction tap.

Without that... you would need something (an alert homo sapiens often does the trick) to connect the device when someone else picked up the phone. I like the HS method because it's cheaper, but it only works if you're in the same residence and can tell when someone picks up the line.

search on google for how phones work. You'll see that only two wires are used, tip and ring. the other two (yellow and black) are used for additional lines, etc. so, to answer your question both. the two wires are used for sending and recieving the signals.

a little tranformer is used as a duplex coil. seperates the incomming voice and outgoing voice. you would attach the speaker and mic to the proper connections on the duplex coil. information on how duplex coils work is in the first link below. the real use of a duplex coil is so you don't hear your own voice in the earpiece (you can, but just because they found the phone sounds dead to people if they can't hear their own voice a little, so, they usually set the duplex cable to allow a little through).

Originally posted by n0mel: search on google for how phones work. You'll see that only two wires are used, tip and ring. the other two (yellow and black) are used for additional lines, etc. so, to answer your question both. the two wires are used for sending and recieving the signals.

Uhh... In ALL twisted pair cables, phone or otherwise, each pair consists of a tip wire and a ring wire. If we're talking about two-pair phone wire, then there is two tips, and two rings: one for each pair.

Black and yellow do not have to have to be connected. They shouldn't be considered as ground. If you rely on them being ground, you'll be screwed if there is a second phone line, if they aren't connected to ground, and if the wiring only has red and green.

no, a good linesman won't consider them "grounded", but is used to it. a GOOD linesman has a voltage tester, like I USED to.

My last post got ate the first time, and explained grounding/wiring/tni/cab/taping/boxes in more definition. Thus I say this, in a short version. for grounding.

If someone doesn't know what a ground is, they shouldn't be in a tni, or a damn cab. Because stupid people don't belong around electricity. I think we both agree on that eh?

My grandfather is the only one in my family that was a linesmen(for nynex I think, after WWII), and during WWII. I know that back then they were much more precautionary of things, because they didn't have such good fail safes as they do today.

Though I have heard of linesmen getting shocked, or killed. I myself used to use certified THICK rubber gloves, and a voltage tester if I was really working on wiring. Anyway I hope this helps. I wish my other post would have gone through.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!Beware the Jubjub bird, and shunThe frumious Bandersnatch!"